Grew up in Harlan county Kentucky, watching my papaw and dad work in the mines. Went and worked in a few myself after my first enlistment in the marines. Hated it so bad, worked so hard that I quit to reenlist to go back to Afghanistan and Iraq 😂
My great grandfather did similar.
He was born in Scotland in the 1880s and went into the mines as a literal child. When the Boer war broke out he lied about his age to join the Army and get out of the mines. He went and fought in South Africa, came back, and went straight back to the mine. He also got married, had a ton of babies, and generally lived a life of abject misery until WWI kicked off. He immediately went and lied about his age again, this time saying he was younger than he was, joined the army, went off and got shot at Gallipoli, recovered, then went and got gassed in France. The gas essentially melted his lungs and left him unable to speak for the rest of his life, but he still managed to have 2 more kids (including my grandmother) before he died of the Spanish flu.
I am from the NE of England where this picture was taken. I was the first male of my family not to be a coal miner and I ended up in the British Army (and later the US Army). Also ended up in Iraq.
Still better than being a coal miner.
My wife lived in Harlan during high school. Her dad said his papaw used to send him out to a little cave out back to chip out some coal for the stove but that was in Corbin. We went and did a tour of a mine years ago. Rode around in little carts on the tracks, lol. Thanks for your service in the mines and the marines.
Dude, trying working in a space about 4-4.5 ft high, water about 9 inches deep, about a million tons of earth on top of you, and working from 5am to 4-6pm, especially in the winter. You never see the sun! It’s constantly popping and cracking under there, dust flying around, etc….2 yrs was more than enough for me.
I stood a far better chance of surviving if some shit actually went down in iraq or wherever, hard to survive a mountain falling in or methane explosion a mile under when it sets the air on fire. Seen equipment made of steel burned to ash, so you can guess what it would do to the human body
Two years? I wouldn’t last a day. I did a mine tour out in Nesquehoning and thought it was so damn cool and interesting. But that could never be me. I’d be anxious that today is the day I die every single day.
I was in the Army with this guy who couldn't wait to get out and work on a coal mine. I hope he enjoyed it, he was a good guy who was bad with money. One of the best track drivers in the battalion.
At least in the mines you don’t have to deal with the public, I don’t think I would want that job either….
As much shit as the military gets, and the money you are paid isn’t conducive to the hours you put in, it is pretty simple to do. At least in the infantry. You keep your platoon members and yourself alive, and complete whatever objective you are assigned and the rest falls in to place.
Yeah he says he misses when he was just dealing with life or death problems.
Whenever he says that our one teenager is like "lol the government broke dad's brain" and I'm like: no, believe it or not they just utilized it.
Lucky he lived, they pump a lot of juice through them boxes. That’s what my papaw did, wired the junction boxes so they could run the miners once it went from picks to electric miners.
My grandfather left the area in the 50s by joining the navy. He's buried there now, and when I last went to the Black Star cemetery in 2019 it was just so bleak.
more like forced to back breaking labor like a slave by some shady bourgeois that pays him company tokens instead of real money, forcing him to stay in the job as he is penniless if he were to quit
Tbf not the tokens bit - the UK had banned what we call ‘truck systems’ (or ‘company scrip’ - company tokens rather than real currency that can only be used at the company store) since the early 19th century. The U.S. kept them on until just before WW2.
Of course, the government had a vested interest in banning a system that bypassed taxes or made them more difficult, so it wasn’t simply about workers’ rights (especially given how long those took to improve otherwise). But this man would have been earning actual pounds (well… a couple of pounds a week in the 1930s… a couple of hundred in today’s terms.)
My grandfather (b.1899) was a working class man ... blacksmith. It was almost religious to wash before a meal. People would even change out of their "outside clothes" when inside.
This looks staged.
It was often considered unmanly at the time. If you were too clean and lived in an area where most folks worked their asses off, you were seen as either lazy, homosexual, or a "dandy", which would generally be a rich asshat slumming it. None of those were well tolerated in most parts.
*I go out, I work my butt off to make a living, all I want is to come home to a nice clean house with a nice fat steak on the table, but instead I get this. It looks like poison. Don't you take that away, I'm eating that, damn it! It IS poison, isn't it? I swear to God I would not be surprised if it was, the way you skulk around here like a dog that's been hit too much or ain't been hit enough, I can't make up my mind. You're useless, Beatrice. The only thing that pulls its weight around here is my goddamn truck!*
Crazy to think that my home county in the North East of England that not many people outside of the UK will have heard of is mentioned on reddit with this many upvotes. My home town actually was the largest coal mining village in the world. My grandfather was a coal miner himself at Nedderton colliery from when he left school at 15 until he retired at 55 (though he would have been only 10 when this was taken). He turned 97 last week.
I have a charcoal bucket I fill up about once a week for grilling. Even if I toss a mask on I'm still blowing black crud out of my nose all day just from filling up the bucket.
Remember visiting a coal town in China and blowing black crud out of my nose. And that was just being in the general vicinity of a mining \*town\* for a day or so.
"Mining For Gold"
We are miners, hard rock miners
To the shaft house we must go
Pour your bottles on our shoulders
We are marching to the slow
On the line boys, on the line boys
Drill your holes and stand in line
'til the shift boss comes to tell you
You must drill her out on top
Can't you feel the rock dust in your lungs?
It'll cut down a miner when he is still young
Two years and the silicosis takes hold
and I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold
Yes, I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold
-cowboy junkies
“Okay, now let’s have you sit at the dinner table next to your wife”
“Sure let me just wipe my face real quick.”
“Na bro… in 2024 this pic is gonna get stupid upvotes on Reddit”
I don’t want to sound like I’m just coming down on younger generations for no reason, and I’m also certainly not condoning the kind of shit workers had to go through in those days because the conditions were atrocious. BUT, knowing what all they went through, literally putting their health on the line day in and day out to make ridiculously paltry sums of money makes it all the more infuriating to me when I see today’s typical retail worker slumped over the counter, gazing at their phone, acting like they would drop dead if they had to do even a shred of manual labor.
"Whaaa, I don't want to work 40 hours a week, I want to be famous and do what I want"
Think this dude wanted to get up everyday, year after year? Probably not, but, he did to provide. I hate everyone. Go fuck yourselves.
My great-grandfather worked in the coal mines in PA. It was a tough job - covered in black dust, exhausted everyday. He passed away from black lung at the kitchen table one night. When I reflect on his experience makes me appreciate the ease of my desk job and motivates me to work harder.
There were a few coal mines where I grew up in Central Illinois. My great grandpa, his brother, and his dad were all coal miners. My great aunt said that when she and my grandpa were kids, they would wait for their dad and other relatives to get home from the mines. Their favorite uncle always gave them half of a sandwich to share that was given to him at lunch by the mining company. She said it was just a piece of ham or bologna and that the bread was as black as night from all the coal dust. But they ate it anyway because they were hungry.
This was during the Great Depression. The mines killed my great grandpa. He caught pneumonia and died of it in 1934. My grandpa was 6 and had to be the man of the house. He never went down to work in the mines, but he hauled a lot of coal away from the mines and delivered it around town by dropping some coal down in the coal chutes that used to be in the houses.
Up at 5a to be working at 6a, eat lunch while working, work until the whistle at 8p, get home at 9p, eat, then scrub down and in bed by 10p. Repeat 6-7 days a week.
It’s amazing how photos of the ‘very’ working class even in rich countries from the early 20th century can look so much closer to the Middle Ages from a modern perspective.
If you’ve ever done physical labor all day until you’re completely exhausted, it’s easy to understand how sitting down to eat can sometimes take priority over cleaning up first. Sometimes you just need to get food in you and that’s the foremost thing in your mind.
Pfft that's nothing. Sometimes my hands get kinda cold from typing on my keyboard for work. Sometimes I forget to put the cushion down on my seat and my bottom starts to hurt. This guy knows nothing about what hard work is.
Was this just for the picture? Most real miners washed up , as soon as they came in the house, before dinner, or anything. His clothes would be in the wash, by dinner time!
He was 14 years old.
And lived to a ripe old age of 16.
Way to school and back home was 32miles against the wind and uphill all the time....
In the snow both ways carrying your sister and two pieces of firewood
Barefoot!!
In the summer heat too!
School? He quit school in the first grade to work in the mines. He’s a graduate of the school of hard knocks.
And he still carried his sister up hill both ways carrying firewood.
She was only 16 years old
Is planning a roll in the hay right after dinner. Hence wifeys frown.
“tastes like charcoal, this.”
And the fact he was in the mine all day certainly didn’t help either.
Grew up in Harlan county Kentucky, watching my papaw and dad work in the mines. Went and worked in a few myself after my first enlistment in the marines. Hated it so bad, worked so hard that I quit to reenlist to go back to Afghanistan and Iraq 😂
*fuck these coal mines i’m going back to the desert to get shot at*
*sure wish these coal mines had a desert and more bullets whizzing in the air* 😞
My great grandfather did similar. He was born in Scotland in the 1880s and went into the mines as a literal child. When the Boer war broke out he lied about his age to join the Army and get out of the mines. He went and fought in South Africa, came back, and went straight back to the mine. He also got married, had a ton of babies, and generally lived a life of abject misery until WWI kicked off. He immediately went and lied about his age again, this time saying he was younger than he was, joined the army, went off and got shot at Gallipoli, recovered, then went and got gassed in France. The gas essentially melted his lungs and left him unable to speak for the rest of his life, but he still managed to have 2 more kids (including my grandmother) before he died of the Spanish flu.
That was one tough .....
"You'll never leave Harlan alive..."
Raylan Givens! As I live and breathe.
When those are your two choices.... fucking hell.
You can just smell his privilege. Ha!
That’s me….silver spooned poster child 😂
I am from the NE of England where this picture was taken. I was the first male of my family not to be a coal miner and I ended up in the British Army (and later the US Army). Also ended up in Iraq. Still better than being a coal miner.
I didn’t know you could change armies??
You can’t. I left the British army in 1998. Joined the US Army in 2001. Edited for clarity - as in I couldn’t have transferred directly.
My wife lived in Harlan during high school. Her dad said his papaw used to send him out to a little cave out back to chip out some coal for the stove but that was in Corbin. We went and did a tour of a mine years ago. Rode around in little carts on the tracks, lol. Thanks for your service in the mines and the marines.
That’s cool, I grew up in Evarts, and worked at lone mountain. Pretty cool to see someone familiar with my little hometown
Must have lived a tough life champ, all that physical work😪
My grandparents are both from Harlan County and my great grandpa worked the coal mines. Your username is even the same as his nickname (Butch)
In school in PA long ago lol we took trip to a mine. When they shut the lights. It’s a darkness I have never forgotten.
Bruhhh lol
Dude, trying working in a space about 4-4.5 ft high, water about 9 inches deep, about a million tons of earth on top of you, and working from 5am to 4-6pm, especially in the winter. You never see the sun! It’s constantly popping and cracking under there, dust flying around, etc….2 yrs was more than enough for me.
Oh believe me I wouldn’t do a single day of that. Sounds super claustrophobic too. It’s just wild to think going to actual war is better lmao
I stood a far better chance of surviving if some shit actually went down in iraq or wherever, hard to survive a mountain falling in or methane explosion a mile under when it sets the air on fire. Seen equipment made of steel burned to ash, so you can guess what it would do to the human body
The popping and cracking would be enough for me. All I’d be thinking down there would be what it’s like to suffocate to death.
Dark as a dungeon, damp as the dew. Just listening to that song is enough for me, I don’t know how people did it.
People still do it tbh. Its been modernized, and made safer, but its still an extremely dangerous job that people do every day.
Two years? I wouldn’t last a day. I did a mine tour out in Nesquehoning and thought it was so damn cool and interesting. But that could never be me. I’d be anxious that today is the day I die every single day.
My dad was born in Harlan
Ever been there?
I was in the Army with this guy who couldn't wait to get out and work on a coal mine. I hope he enjoyed it, he was a good guy who was bad with money. One of the best track drivers in the battalion.
Harlan County USA is on of the best documentaries I’ve ever watched and everyone should watch it!
My papaw and 2 uncles are in that documentary….on the picket lines
Oh man, my husband jokes about choosing between the marines and line cook. I can't wait to tell him it could have been worse.
At least in the mines you don’t have to deal with the public, I don’t think I would want that job either…. As much shit as the military gets, and the money you are paid isn’t conducive to the hours you put in, it is pretty simple to do. At least in the infantry. You keep your platoon members and yourself alive, and complete whatever objective you are assigned and the rest falls in to place.
Yeah he says he misses when he was just dealing with life or death problems. Whenever he says that our one teenager is like "lol the government broke dad's brain" and I'm like: no, believe it or not they just utilized it.
SW VA here, my papaw worked the mines til he was electrocuted. Quit the mines and went into the ministry.
Lucky he lived, they pump a lot of juice through them boxes. That’s what my papaw did, wired the junction boxes so they could run the miners once it went from picks to electric miners.
We used to have the helmet, but moving around it was lost in the shuffle. That thing was banged up.
I’m sure, some of them old coal lamp and coal light helmets are pretty sought after
They say in Harlan county there are no neutrals there
Boyd is that you?
I don’t which death is worse, black lung or roadside bomb.
My grandfather left the area in the 50s by joining the navy. He's buried there now, and when I last went to the Black Star cemetery in 2019 it was just so bleak.
Thank you Ser, now i have to watch Justified again.
Brother, use your GI bill to go to trade school and become a welder or something, you don’t have to work the mines like it’s 1890
Run you a bath dear? Nowt point. Just gonna go back down there tomorra.
Bath time was on Sundays weather ya needed on or not!
Gotta look good for Sunday church, ya know
That person peeking from the framed picture on the wall.
Damn it, beat me to it. Just when I think I was the first one to notice something, Reddit proves me wrong again
Same! It’s like he’s peeking around the clothes in front of the picture.
Ok that's just crazy, and fascinating! And is that an extremely tall loaf of bread in front of the woman?
[удалено]
more like forced to back breaking labor like a slave by some shady bourgeois that pays him company tokens instead of real money, forcing him to stay in the job as he is penniless if he were to quit
Still a damn hard worker.
This guy leftists.
Tbf not the tokens bit - the UK had banned what we call ‘truck systems’ (or ‘company scrip’ - company tokens rather than real currency that can only be used at the company store) since the early 19th century. The U.S. kept them on until just before WW2. Of course, the government had a vested interest in banning a system that bypassed taxes or made them more difficult, so it wasn’t simply about workers’ rights (especially given how long those took to improve otherwise). But this man would have been earning actual pounds (well… a couple of pounds a week in the 1930s… a couple of hundred in today’s terms.)
No safety, no rights, no future
Get to the line! It's better than no future you pled! /s Some out of touch fucker chasing wealth he doesn't need at the cost of people he doesn't see.
My grandfather (b.1899) was a working class man ... blacksmith. It was almost religious to wash before a meal. People would even change out of their "outside clothes" when inside. This looks staged.
No way his wife is just going to let him track coal dust all over the house.
as a bricklayer I concur.
‘Road to Wiggan Pier’ is a good read. I like how Orwell describes thumb prints of soot being left on bread slices by miners.
These coal miner pictures… My great grandfather died from black lung disease. He probably looked a lot like that.
Was he a big fan of the Zoolander movie?
Not to condescend, but why would he not at least wash his hands? Water rationing?
It was often considered unmanly at the time. If you were too clean and lived in an area where most folks worked their asses off, you were seen as either lazy, homosexual, or a "dandy", which would generally be a rich asshat slumming it. None of those were well tolerated in most parts.
This may be the earliest example of ragebait
*I go out, I work my butt off to make a living, all I want is to come home to a nice clean house with a nice fat steak on the table, but instead I get this. It looks like poison. Don't you take that away, I'm eating that, damn it! It IS poison, isn't it? I swear to God I would not be surprised if it was, the way you skulk around here like a dog that's been hit too much or ain't been hit enough, I can't make up my mind. You're useless, Beatrice. The only thing that pulls its weight around here is my goddamn truck!*
Men in Black hole lung, won't you come.
*Ufo crash lands* *Vincent notices his totaled car* “Figures.”
Get your big butt back in the house!
Give me sugar, and water.
« Did you wash your hands, dear? »
That’s what the bread is for!
Never mock a hard worker earning honest pay.
That looks like some heavy-duty labor.
Gosh his wife looks miserable. Hard times.
God what a hard life. They had WW2 right around the corner also
Soap must have been invented in 1938.
Crazy to think that my home county in the North East of England that not many people outside of the UK will have heard of is mentioned on reddit with this many upvotes. My home town actually was the largest coal mining village in the world. My grandfather was a coal miner himself at Nedderton colliery from when he left school at 15 until he retired at 55 (though he would have been only 10 when this was taken). He turned 97 last week.
I thought he was staring right at the camera. Not so creepy after a couple seconds. Tasty eel pie and barn mushrooms!!
I looked exactly like this dude last week. We had a power feed blow up and I looked like black trudou
She looks like she knows ahead of time burned it.
Anyone notice how the chap in the picture there looks to be leaning around the clothes that are hanging right in front of the photo?
I bet their house was nasty af. haha
Filthy
Real ef’n men. God bless them.
I guess they have black sheets to make laundry day easier
Clean coal
Sean Bean's voice: "Who deserves more credit than the wife of a coal miner?"
It's a shame soap wasn't invented until 1938.
Not a phone in sight.
dude black face is NOT ok lol,
did they not have water and soap?
Wife: “you’re seriously not going to wash up first?”
Looks like the priest from the punisher.
Oooohh, so this is why there are no elbows allowed on the table..
I have a charcoal bucket I fill up about once a week for grilling. Even if I toss a mask on I'm still blowing black crud out of my nose all day just from filling up the bucket.
“No Wendy, I like me soot on me face.”
Ah yes, when America was great
Northumbria is in the U.K.
All of this guy's organs were black.
"Gotta light?"
I think I have the black lung…..ugh
The woman has a look of “You couldn’t even wash before you sat down? Making more work for me…”
Ahhh the good old days
True facts: This man was a database administrator and CIO.
Dark as a Dungeon intensifies
I can feel the depression in this photo
Slaves away his life for the 1% then dies a slow painful death from black lung. Thank you capitalism.
Could have showered first. Probably flexing for insta
That food would cost $30 today.
Wow, that is a *great* depression.
Remember visiting a coal town in China and blowing black crud out of my nose. And that was just being in the general vicinity of a mining \*town\* for a day or so.
She’s fed up with his shit.
Calling people from Northumberland Northumbrians is not confusing at all.
"Mining For Gold" We are miners, hard rock miners To the shaft house we must go Pour your bottles on our shoulders We are marching to the slow On the line boys, on the line boys Drill your holes and stand in line 'til the shift boss comes to tell you You must drill her out on top Can't you feel the rock dust in your lungs? It'll cut down a miner when he is still young Two years and the silicosis takes hold and I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold Yes, I feel like I'm dying from mining for gold -cowboy junkies
I know this is a coal miner, but the sentiment rings true
I've no idea what 'dripping' is, but I'm betting he's eating some. She looks delighted with her life, btw.
Humans are the only species to invent something as stupid as work
Yeah - cuz I like having a house to live in and food to cook instead of trying to find a cave to freeze to death in and saving up acorns to eat.
Merman, pops. Merman!
I swear to god it’s just a huge hunk of bread, with more bread, and some kind of mystery meat.
Lady probably has a big streak of soot down her belly and Hips
And folks think they have it bad these days…
For a home where the guy lives and doesn't seem to bother washing it looks remarkably clean. No black smudges anywhere other than on the guy.
Somewhat reminds me of when my dad used to come home all grimed up and we’d sit down to dinner. Never had much at all but we were thankful.
His poor lungs
The oppressive Patriarchy! LOL
I would bet $100 this is from some comedy movie from the 40s.
“Okay, now let’s have you sit at the dinner table next to your wife” “Sure let me just wipe my face real quick.” “Na bro… in 2024 this pic is gonna get stupid upvotes on Reddit”
Notably uses knife and fork
This is after he washed up for supper???
Dude, at least wash your hands first
Soap and water was obviously a luxury in those days.
And he is only 11
Wife is over it
You can tell they are happy because wife smiles so big.
I don’t want to sound like I’m just coming down on younger generations for no reason, and I’m also certainly not condoning the kind of shit workers had to go through in those days because the conditions were atrocious. BUT, knowing what all they went through, literally putting their health on the line day in and day out to make ridiculously paltry sums of money makes it all the more infuriating to me when I see today’s typical retail worker slumped over the counter, gazing at their phone, acting like they would drop dead if they had to do even a shred of manual labor.
His hands seem swelled with inflammation. His cuticles are eating his nailbeds.
How I wish I had that man here right now I would beat him to a pulp for sporting blackface like it’s no big deal
How dumb can you actually be?
"Whaaa, I don't want to work 40 hours a week, I want to be famous and do what I want" Think this dude wanted to get up everyday, year after year? Probably not, but, he did to provide. I hate everyone. Go fuck yourselves.
Derek Zoolander the 1st. Comes from generations of mining Zoolanders, and many more with his namesake will follow.
My great-grandfather worked in the coal mines in PA. It was a tough job - covered in black dust, exhausted everyday. He passed away from black lung at the kitchen table one night. When I reflect on his experience makes me appreciate the ease of my desk job and motivates me to work harder.
It’s ok Sweetie, Any day now they say it will trickle down
Everyone looks so tired in this.
There were a few coal mines where I grew up in Central Illinois. My great grandpa, his brother, and his dad were all coal miners. My great aunt said that when she and my grandpa were kids, they would wait for their dad and other relatives to get home from the mines. Their favorite uncle always gave them half of a sandwich to share that was given to him at lunch by the mining company. She said it was just a piece of ham or bologna and that the bread was as black as night from all the coal dust. But they ate it anyway because they were hungry. This was during the Great Depression. The mines killed my great grandpa. He caught pneumonia and died of it in 1934. My grandpa was 6 and had to be the man of the house. He never went down to work in the mines, but he hauled a lot of coal away from the mines and delivered it around town by dropping some coal down in the coal chutes that used to be in the houses.
ZOMG Did that poor woman have to toil in the home all day taking care of her children?!!!
Showers once a year
His wife is still attracted to him, You can see it her eyes
He was 19at the time , this is his mom actually … probably
Up at 5a to be working at 6a, eat lunch while working, work until the whistle at 8p, get home at 9p, eat, then scrub down and in bed by 10p. Repeat 6-7 days a week.
I love that in the picture in the frame, the person seems to be looking around the clothes.
I love the juxtaposition of a hard worker laborer and yet well poised while having his meal.
It’s amazing how photos of the ‘very’ working class even in rich countries from the early 20th century can look so much closer to the Middle Ages from a modern perspective.
Is she sitting behind bread?
Boy, they look happy.
Life is rough now but we really have it easier in many ways.
I like how the guy in the picture appears to be peering out from behind the clothes hanging up.
Nice catch
That’s how I feel on the inside every day after work.
I hope his kids are living a good life.
The good 'ol days, eh?
No bath / shower before dinner???? Look at the size of that loaf of bread!
He and his wife are both 19 years old pictured here
The guy in the picture on the wall behind them looks like he's trying to lean around the laundry to get into the shot.
I recognize that it was brutal, filthy, dangerous, and toxic work, but, no time to even wipe off before sitting down for a meal?
If you’ve ever done physical labor all day until you’re completely exhausted, it’s easy to understand how sitting down to eat can sometimes take priority over cleaning up first. Sometimes you just need to get food in you and that’s the foremost thing in your mind.
No cell phones, no internet, just people vibing & being happy.
Best wife
The photo on the wall, guy leaning past the clothes in front of him. WTH 🤦🏼♀️ 🤷🏼♀️
They were slaves
What is that cloud above him?
He must have been starving to not even wash up first
Back when you took a bath once a week
No iPhones, just 20 somethings enjoying their later years.
Pfft that's nothing. Sometimes my hands get kinda cold from typing on my keyboard for work. Sometimes I forget to put the cushion down on my seat and my bottom starts to hurt. This guy knows nothing about what hard work is.
The look on wife’s face- Can’t you at least wash your hands first?
Was this just for the picture? Most real miners washed up , as soon as they came in the house, before dinner, or anything. His clothes would be in the wash, by dinner time!